


17

by lucky_katebishop



Series: Spideychelle Song One-Shots [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Grieving Peter Parker, Michelle Jones Is a Good Bro, Multi, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Not Far From Home Compliant, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Whump, tony is dead so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 19:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19470763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucky_katebishop/pseuds/lucky_katebishop
Summary: "When I was seventeen my mother said to me, 'Don't stop imagining, the day that you do is the day that you die.'"Peter was six years old when his parents died. He was fourteen when his uncle died. He was sixteen when his mentor Tony Stark died. He didn't know if he could lose anyone else.The story of Peter Parker through the ages as he loses the people he loves most.





	17

**Author's Note:**

> "When I was seventeen my mother said to me, 'Don't stop imagining, the day that you do is the day that you die.'" - 17 by Youth Lagoon (the song doesn't really apply to the story, I just really liked the sound of it, and I listened to this the entire time while writing this fic so I suggest you listen as you read!)

Peter was six years old his when his parents died. He was six years old when his parents dropped him off at his aunt and uncle’s apartment, telling him that they’d be back soon. He hadn’t known his aunt and uncle very well, only seeing them on important holidays and birthdays. 

His parents were smart, he knew that. He bragged about it at preschool to the other kids. He was short, had asthma, wore wire-thin glasses, and was a very easy target for bullies. But his parents were smart. He would speak multitudes about them on the playground, telling anyone who would listen (most of the kids didn’t.) 

His parents were his heroes. Peter didn’t really have any grasp of what heroes were, at least not yet, but he knew that his parents were enough. It was the three of them- but a younger sibling was in the works; Peter knew, he had been asking Santa for one since he was three years old when he decided playing with Legos on his own was too boring. It was the three of them; Peter, his brilliant and caring mother, and his sweet and charismatic father. 

Peter had begged to go on the trip with them. 

“We haven’t gone on vacation since Coney Island! That was a whole year ago!” Peter whined, wrapping his arms around his mother’s waist. Mary ran a hand through her son’s curly hair, pressing a soft kiss on the top of his head. 

“Your father and I aren’t going on a vacation, dear, we’re going on a work trip,” Mary said smoothly. 

Peter forgot what his parents voices sounded like, but he did remember that his mother spoke in a very soft and smooth voice, always sure of what she was doing. Always confident, but never in an arrogant way. His father, on the other hand, never sounded confident in what he was doing. His voice was always breathy and frantic, like he was on the brink of a new scientific discovery.

Ben would tell him that Mary and Richard evened themselves out. Mary grounding Richard to reality and Richard elevating Mary to a higher status. They matched perfectly; two scientists with too many brilliant ideas but not enough time. 

Peter didn’t speak at the funeral. He wasn’t really aware of what was happening. He knew what death was, sure. But he couldn’t grasp the fact that he would never see his parents again. That his mom wasn’t going to come out of the shadows and hug him, with his father trailing behind like he always did, and telling Peter that it was time to go home. 

But that didn’t happen. His parents were gone. And he was stuck in an uncomfortable suit that Ben had taken him to get just a few days earlier, not understanding why Ben was crying on the car ride home when Peter said he couldn’t wait for his parents to see his new suit. 

The idea that his parents were dead didn’t stick with him, not until after the funeral was over and he saw all his stuff in the guest room at his aunt and uncle’s apartment. He stood in the doorway, his clip on tie falling off, and broke down, crying for his parents. Crying for all the memories he would have to experience without his parents. Crying for being the only one left. Crying for being stuck with two people he didn’t know very well. 

He stopped bragging to the kids at the playground how smart his parents were. 

Peter was fourteen years old when his uncle died. He was fourteen when he went on a field trip to Oscorp and got bitten by a radioactive spider. He was scared and confused, and he couldn’t tell anyone. Peter knew what would happen if he told people. He had seen the news enough to know that being a superhero came with many challenges, and that imminent danger came to those that a superhero loved. So, he didn’t tell May or Ben. 

The first few months of living at May and Ben’s was difficult. He felt like a burden, a nuisance. He missed his parents and he wanted them back. But slowly, very slowly, things got better. He stopped imagining what his parents would do in certain situations, or how he would celebrate his milestones with his parents, and instead started focusing on his aunt and uncle. He got his trio back. Sure, it wasn’t the same, but it wasn’t bad. 

He didn’t speak at the funeral. The only difference this time was that he knew that Ben was gone. His last words with Ben were out of anger and frustration. He didn’t feel like it was right to fix that. He had to own up to the fact that Ben had died because of Peter; because Peter was selfish and too wrapped up in his own problems to actually help anybody. 

He wouldn’t speak to May for a few days after that. He started spending all hours of the night walking in the bustling streets of Queens, needing to get out of that apartment that still had too many memories of the three of them. 

He came across a woman being mugged one night, and he stood still, the sound of a gunshot still fresh in his mind, the sight of Ben bleeding out on a dirty sidewalk in his mind. He didn’t really know what was happening until he saw two men on the ground, with bruises on their faces and Peter’s knuckles split open and bloody. The woman had already long gone, deciding a skinny teenager that could knock out two giant men was well off on his own. 

With his breath caught up in his throat, and one of the men deciding that he wasn’t done, Peter ran. He ran until the street lights became blurry and his lungs begged for air. For the first time since he saw Ben slowly drift off into nothing, with blood on his hands, Peter cried. He crouched down on the side of a building and held his head in his hands, sobbing. Ben had been so kind to Peter, after everything. Ben had pushed through his own grief of losing his only brother to be there for Peter.

Peter had lost a family when he was six years old and Ben and May came to him with open arms. Peter had decided he would be okay because he had them; he had another trio. They had each other, and that was all they ever needed. 

Ben had offered everything to Peter and Peter gave nothing in return. 

He called May as soon as the sun came up, his voice hoarse from crying. It was the first time since Ben had died that Peter spoke to May. She ran to him when she saw him, broken and tired, sitting on the ground against the wall of a bodega. She wrapped him in her arms and told him that everything was going to be okay, that he had her, that she had him. They were going to be okay because they had each other. 

Peter didn’t tell her about Spider-Man. He didn’t tell her that he was tired of losing people, of having to adapt. He didn’t tell her about the nightmares, about Ben’s death, about any of it. He just let her hold him in her arms and feed him empty promises. 

Peter was sixteen years old when Tony Stark died. He had been fighting Thanos, and then it just wasn’t a problem anymore. He thought they had won. He really thought they had won. But Mr. Stark wasn’t responding, and he had a crazed delirious expression in his eyes, and he wasn’t responding.

He didn’t speak at the funeral. It wasn’t his place. He was surrounded by his heroes but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. 

He sat by the fire, fiddling with his unopened soda, eyes glued to anywhere but the multitude of people that were sitting by him. He tuned out the stories that people shot all around him. Stories about Tony and the many adventures they had with him. He got up to leave when War Machine was in the middle of a story about at sixteen year old Tony at MIT pranking the dean of admissions. He could feel the eyes that were glued on him, probably wondering how Tony got mixed up with a sixteen year old with enhanced powers. He didn’t belong there, that was sure. 

He didn’t talk for a few weeks after that. Ned had kept on trying to call him, even showed up at the apartment once, but he turned him away. He laid down in a room that wasn’t his anymore and surrounded by walls that had no memory of Ben. He was living in a world that wasn’t his anymore, it was some ghost of a world where people were older than he remembered. Nothing felt right, nothing felt right, nothing felt right and Peter didn’t know what to do. 

He was so tired. He was tired of being left alone, of worrying people, of not being able to feel normal again, of everything. He felt numb and broken and he didn’t know what to do. 

He didn’t talk for a few weeks until MJ showed up at his door. May was out working and Peter was huddled in blankets on the couch staring at some mind-numbing TV show when he heard pounding at the door. He had hoped that whoever was knocking would leave after a few minutes, but they were insistent. 

Slowly getting up, Peter walked up to the door, deciding to answer it would be better than to disrupt his neighbors by the pounding. When he opened the door, he was shocked to find MJ. 

When Ned showed up a couple weeks before, Peter had shut the door on him, going back to bed. He didn’t think shutting the door on MJ would be an okay thing to do. So, instead, he opened the door and let her in, laying back on the couch. 

“Hey,” MJ said, shutting the door. Peter stared at the TV in response. 

“You haven’t been at school at all, so I came by to give you your homework,” Michelle said, placing the stack of papers on the coffee table. The thought of even touching it made Peter retreat farther into his blankets. 

He watched MJ as she walked around the living room, taking stock of his new apartment. She had a look on her face that Peter had never seen before. She looked nervous. 

“My family didn’t get snapped, or whatever the hell they’re calling it. I was the only one. So when I came back, I was surrounded by people who looked like my family, but weren’t. They looked at me like I was a ghost, like they were afraid to even acknowledge my existence. My little sister is now older than me. When she heard that I was back, she came home and- and it looked like her, but it wasn’t, not really. She was older, mature, different. Suddenly I came back and it’s like I don’t fit in this world anymore,” Michelle turned around to look at Peter, who felt sick to his stomach. “They’re still here, I still have them, but I also don’t. I lost that part of them that made me feel like I belonged, and Peter, I can’t lose anymore. I can’t lose you.” 

Peter knew she was begging him to say something, anything. But something in him recoiled, making him unable to even open his mouth. She gave him a few moments of tense silence before walking away. 

Peter had lost a lot in his life. He’s known more grief than anybody should, and MJ’s story resonated with him. As she opened the door, Peter turned slightly towards her. 

“How’s the academic decathlon team?” His voice was hoarse and scratchy, but it was something. It was the first words he’s spoken since… well, since Tony died. Some part of him thought that if he spoke up again it would mean that he was really gone, and Peter hadn’t been ready to acknowledge that yet. He still wasn’t. 

MJ shut the door, and moved Peter’s legs to fit on the couch. 

“Flash is a dick but other than that everything’s good. Nationals is going to be in Connecticut this year.” 

“How’s Ned?” Peter asked softly. MJ looked over at him like she was trying to figure out what to say. 

“He’s worried about you.” 

Peter wanted to say me too but he didn’t know how without eliciting worry from MJ. So, instead, they talked about things that didn’t matter, like how many more Star Wars films there were, and which middle schoolers were now in their class, and how Mr. Harrington’s life just keeps getting more pathetic somehow. 

May would find them laughing a few hours later once she got home from work. For the first time in this new world they were thrust upon, she could see the light she thought was gone in Peter come back. It wasn’t much, but it was something. 

Peter was seventeen years old when it got better. Some days were worse than others, so much so that it was hard to get out of bed, or he had to leave school early because it all got to be too much, but most of the time it was… good. Normal, almost. 

But even through the bad times, MJ, Ned, and May were always by his side. He didn’t feel so helpless anymore. 

It was when MJ, Ned, and Peter were at the fair, MJ and Ned arguing about some book series Peter had never heard about when he attacked them with a bone crushing hug. It caught them so off guard that Ned almost dropped his funnel cake. 

It wasn’t where Peter would ever imagine his life was going to go. But it was good. He was good.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if the ending feels a little rush, I didn't know how to end it! But I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
